Of course the next morning, when the dizziness of the cider and putting my future husband on his ass had worn off, I could feel only one thing: terror.

William was going to think I was mad. Or boring. The betrothal would be off, no doubt about that, and likely he'd tell people...and my friends would think I was an utter fool and men would think I was some kind of up-tight prude. By midday, I'd convinced myself I'd die a lonely spinster in some nunnery surrounded by freakish sixty-year-old virgins who everyone knew tried to get goats to have sex with them. And I could do nothing but sit and wait for the impending disaster, keeping from throwing myself out of the nearest window only because he hadn't actually broke the betrothal off yet, and there was always the chance he'd gotten so drunk he couldn't remember what had transgressed the previous evening.

So there was still the remote possibility of everything being okay after all.

I'd go to bed that night not knowing, but worrying, and the night after that. Fortunately I was saved by the grace of Sunday Mass, and for the first time in my life I avoided St Mary's with it's dear, half-mad priest and lax approach to Christianity ("It's been a week since my last confession." "How much could one girl sin in a week? Come back when you've murdered someone...") for the somewhat more flashy cathedral, which was where the Elite went to show off to the unwashed masses who gathered outside to beg. Kind of like in Prince Of Thieves, only the peasants were less "Ooooh give me money to buy bread, I'm sooo poor." and more, "Give me money, I know where you live."

Okay. It took three chapters, and my secret has just leaked out: I didn't really like poor people. I mean, Rob, obviously. And Much was okay...he's called Toby now, we hang out sometimes. But generally, I was with William on the general disgust aimed at the salt of the earth. Obviously now I'm okay with them, I mean, I'm the original Marxist rock chick...but back then, peasants were germy and stupid and disgusting, and if it weren't for Rob, I'd have avoided them like the plague. No pun intended.

Anyway. Mass that Sunday was somewhat agonising, trying to spot William in the pews (I'd come in late, and had to sit at the back, next to some old guy with a grey beard to rival Dumbledore's and a tendency to spit out prayers, grey saliva landing on me more than once.)

Latin streamed down from the pulpit, but I was too anxious to translate or concentrate. I think the sermon was about pride, but I was too worried about the gown I'd chosen - too low-cut, was I sending mixed-messages? Or maybe too red, and I looked like I was trying to be all better than he was? - I suppose there's a kind of irony there.

Anyway. Finally, finally the last hymn was sung and we were all bid to go in peace.

William saw me, and for a long, painful moment I thought he was going to pass without acknowledging me, not even take the time to tell me it was over, just leave me to my long future of becoming a spinster nun. And then he swung into the seat next to me, the Dumbledore-man snoozing loudly on the other side - and something in me acknowledged everything just might be okay after all.

God. My life might have been so much easier if he had just ignored me that day, broke it off and married some nice girl named Joan. But life might have turned out so many different ways, it's futile to spend too long on the What Ifs.

For over a minute, we sat there in silence. I'd never had to apologise for kneeing a man in the balls before. I'd done it, of course, when Rob or my brother had deserved it. But I'd never had to apologise for it later. After all, William had only tried to express his love...and I'd insulted him. And now I was just sitting there, struggling for words like a fish plucked from water. "I'm, um...I'm really sorry. About the other night. I was...I'm sorry."

I was half-expecting him to slap me, or something. I pretty much deserved it. But what he did was much, much worse.

He laughed. "No harm done...if anything, it was amusing."

Was it then that I first realised I was engaged to a mad man? No. It was later. But that incident definitely planted the seeds of doubt in my mind.

"You're sure?"

"If anything, I find it comforting - it's nice to know I'm not marrying a whore."

For a moment, I stopped with the unsubtly of the word. Strange to think there was a time I was that easily shocked, how I'd be shocked and ashamed at how much I use language that would have had me blushing back them.

William noted his mistake, "I didn't mean. Excuse me." Wisely, he shifted the conversation, "What I meant was: it will be better, waiting for our wedding night. I shouldn't have expected any less, not from you."

I don't remember exactly what was said after that, but I think the basic gist of it was, "Damn straight, you misogynistic twat." Only with a delicacy and grace I've apprantly lost since.

Anyway. The most nerve-racking conversation of my life ended in a sentence that even now chills and annoys me: "I love you. But I hope you realise when the time comes, you will be mine."

What. A. Twat.